Hello friends welcome to Gardening with Creekside today we have a very fun little project ahead
of us I am here right off of the pathway that goes to the patio um you'll probably recognize
that I have got my fantastic salvia going this is the rock and play in the blues um
salvia and man it is spectacular there are bees all over this thing so we have
the pathway the salvia and then I have my David Austin roses right behind here probably going
to have to trim up that salvia just a little bit but the project that we're going to do
is featuring this fantastic bird bath that i had gotten from unique stone a while ago and so
through a set of unfortunate circumstances the bird bath is not holding water like it should
so it would hold you know hold the water for a little bit and then it would just leak out
obviously i do not want to get rid of this thing because it is a gorgeous
piece of pottery um so i was like how can i use this in a different way
i am going to plant it with some agaves and the chicks of the hidden chicks the sempervi
semper vivums or the semper vivums however you want to say it so i have it right here in this
spot which is really fun because there's this little pathway that will cut through right here
between the azaleas and the roses and the salvia because this is definitely going to be a container
that you're going to want to see up close it has all sorts of fun little chicks in there that we're
just going to fill in and it is going to be really fun so that is what we are going to do today
so what i have first of all let's talk about the plants that we're going to use so i have
i have my little colander full of chicks that i went ahead and harvested off of
the succulent planter from michael carr that's just right over there on the patio i did this
about three days ago and all i did was went in with my little snips and i just cut right just
that little piece right off so this is the chick this is the baby that's what you call them hen and
chicks and i just had the most fun going in there and cutting these little cute little things off
and so some of them have more of a stem than others do that's all right so we've got a huge
selection of them in here lots of different colors look at that one oh look at that red isn't that
fun so yeah so i've got a whole little colander full of them so you snip them off
and then you want to place them in an area out of direct sun but outside that's nice and warm
so they can cure the stems can cure and then all we're going to do is just kind of plop them in to
the soil so i've got a whole assortment of these babies that we're going to use
and you know i am blessed to have a mama that does enjoy gardening as much as i do if not even more
so we have got two of the agave pups that she is going to share with us so one is from a friend who
went to go visit the nursery plants delights in plant delights in raleigh and this was a pup off
of hers so this is an agave nickel nickel slay nickel sly i'll put the name up there for you
but is a nice deep kind of a bluish green and with some white in there so that's a great one and then
this is off of her it is not a proven winner she just recycled her pot this is a jc ralston agave
which is a beautiful try to get my face out of here just an absolutely beautiful blue green color
is fantastic so we're going to use those as well okay so what we're going to do is one say a little
prayer that i don't get a pollinator that gets too friendly with me um but i have gone ahead and set
this up i do have a um it's like a solid cinder block underneath and i've leveled it completely
so it's perfectly level the bird bath is sitting on top of that and then i just covered it up with
mulch so it looks like it's sitting on raw ground but it's not so that way i have learned you need
to make sure these things are level and supported because over time they'll start to tip a little
bit it's not a super deep container which is good so i am going to go ahead and fill in the bottom
with some rocks just to make sure that um because yes there will be water sitting on top of here
you know when it rains and things right and i want to make sure that they're not completely soaked
so again not proven winter rocks but it is what you have use what you got people right so
just going to go in there of course i probably got too many but that's all right i'd rather have too
many than not enough on here all right so now what we're going to do is i have my tub and what was
one i think my key to success when i did the succulent planter is my friend miss kathy who is
just a fantastic gardener told me she said jenny mix your soil so i have got um soil conditioner
aged pine bark fines whatever you want to call it so this will help in drainage so i've got some in
here and then i've got the proven winter's potting soil so i'm going to do equal parts potting soil
and the soil conditioner mix that up and then that is going to be my soil that i'm going to use my
growing medium for that because we want it to hold water but we don't want to hold too much water
right it's that wonderful delicate balance so now i'm just getting in here and mixing
everybody up so that you don't want to layer the soil you want to mix it so that you have even
drainage throughout the entire container because some layers if you do it by layers
some layers will hold more moisture than others and when we're dealing with agaves and
the the simple vitamins we don't want that to happen so we're mixing it in here
really good and we are i'm fighting and racing against the weather
because we're gonna have some storms come through and i'm like okay in fact here comes the rain so
we're gonna we're gonna move with purpose today all right so that's good enough and
i think what i'm going to do is actually put in before i put down the soil i'm going to put the
agaves in because they're actually in containers i don't know what their root system looks like
but i'm going ahead and place them and then add the soil around it that way i don't have to dig
down into there this little pup probably has very little roots because mama just harvested
it off of the mother plant like within the last two weeks so we're going to be very gentle here
more than i thought all right and we're just going to place it say
a little prayer that it'll stay together here we go all right throw the pot to brina
all right both of these agaves came oh there you go from
plant delights they are a fantastic really nice gorgeous perennials and they do mail order so i'll
put the link in the video description now with the jc ralston i know that in a couple of years i will
have to move it because it will get big so this is a big one but that's okay in the meantime i'm very
happy with it and we'll let it grow and be just fine all right so we're just going to load up
the soil all around them and i may end up raising these up a little bit so it can be more of a mound
right higher in the center and come out i just figured since those roots are very tender
but i didn't want to have to manipulate them too much
it's my first time doing this something like this jenny's just having fun and um
it's always try something different in the garden right there's so many great plants
out there stretch yourself test yourself have fun all right let's see what that looks like
before i start putting in the chicks i'm going to um water this in because it will i was taking
my cues from my mama and she said she gave me her little her little pokey stick this is not
uh scientific whatsoever but she did tell me she said it makes it easier if your soil
is already a little damp because that way you can create a hole a lot easier for the little chicks
so i'm just trying to get soil between these agaves because you do not want air pockets
around your roots that is a great way to kill your plants so always make sure
that they're nice and happy all right okay i think we're we are just about there with all of the soil
that i need and then i am going to i have a hose right there this that was another reason why
i like this location is because i do have access to water that's really easy um so we're going to
just kind of do a light little mist because we are expecting some rain today i just need to get
this kind of so that it is wet and i can make a hole a little bit easier all right so i'm going
to water this the way that i tell people not to water their plants so i'm going to do like the
little dance with the water because again i don't want a real strong we're going to
there we go easy as that just enough water to get them in there and to get
the soil wet so that when i make a hole the hole will stay now here comes the fun part
all right so now comes the fun part where i just come in and i think i'm gonna first um
well see i've never done this before so i think what i'll do is is plant them as i go so i'm
just making a little bit of a hole and then i'm going to put the stem down into the hole
and nestle them in that's what mama said to do that's what i'm gonna do now i don't
know that i will have um enough quote enough right i mean that's all relative
to fill this up but the great thing is i was kind of conservative when i was cutting off my
chicks because i just didn't know right how much i would have and i would rather cut not enough
and wait a couple days and come back and fill them in as opposed to cutting too many and then
i couldn't use them i don't want them to go to waste so i'm just going to come in here have fun
get everybody snuggled in make sure that they're all tucked down in there and yeah
just go in and have a grand old time placing them enjoying it there we go
okay so the rain did start to come so we had to put the big camera back up in the house because
it cannot get wet so i brought the gopro out which is waterproof fantastic all right
so the little container is done it was relatively speaking a very easy project to do
i think i can definitely go ahead and harvest a little bit more of the um the chicks so what
i will do is i'll just go ahead and in a minute and i'll go get my little snips and i will show
you because i certainly have lots of room that i could fill in these are from the chick charms
that we got back in the spring if you remember that video where i did the succulent planter
so they have been very prolific produced lots of babies this year um and not even the year just
this past couple of months so i definitely have little rooms little pockets that i could fill in
and so yeah so let's just go ahead and grab the snips and a container and we'll
go harvest some more chicks so in a couple of days i can add them back to it but i do
love this whole location of this i think it just is really fun makes a nice pop something
different different texture different something fun you know because gardening should be fun
and filling up a bird bath that doesn't hold water anymore with little succulents that's fun so grab
my snips and we're just going to go right over here to the patio and harvest some more chicks
so right here over my shoulder you will see the succulent planter from michael carr he did it as
a succulent planter strawberry planter however you want to use it i have found the greatest success
using it with these hidden chicks so happy so you can see where i have already like pruned off of
those those are not so much right but then kind of coming around over here to the side there's lots
of babies that we can harvest again i'm working in the rain i don't have a tripod so we're gonna
do the best we can so this little guy right here what we're going to do is we're going to come in
and we're just going to come in and just with my snips and just cut it just like that so then what
we end up with is we have that little bit of the stem on there and so that way once it hardens off
and cures then we can then safely plant it back into the bird bath so we're trying to get
there we go coming in trying to snip off as much as we possibly can that one's still connected and
then these guys the hens can just stay in there oh see see how that had already rooted right there
so it had the stem of course and then it had already sent out some roots
so that is perfectly fine and then we're going to come over here we've got a bunch of babies right
here so we're going to figure out who's connected to who all right so this is a tricky one let's see
if this is it i think this is it and then it is so look that was a great find so what i can then
do is go around and cut off now this is the hen and these are all the little chicks so i'll go
and snip all of those off and then i have even more um so this can be a really fun addictive
type of gardening because these babies just grow and multiply and then look at all those
look at all those little guys on there so much fun oh my goodness let's see get one more section here
look at that mother lode oh man i got all sorts of good ones in there
all right so i have my little bowl full of chicks and i'm gonna dump it out here we are underneath
the um on the back porch and so this is a covered area because you wherever you're going to cure
them you want to make sure that they don't get water on them right so we need to let them air
dry and this back porch is a great option so what i'm going to do is come in here and separate
any little chicks off of a hen and so there we go that's what we're going to do
and then you just lay them out i mean they can just sit here on the table
nothing fancy um if i didn't have so many little chicks then i could have just dumped them
dumped and gone but i do love these little scissors i got them from you know me kinsman
garden company and they are sharp i don't use them on a whole lot of things but they are great
for fine work like this so we got everybody off and just laying right there so that's what
we're going to do and then we have this really pretty red one and we're going to come in here
oh these are some big ones
there we go oh this one's got a bunch i like this one because it has the green
with the red tips those are so much fun just cut off all those little babies
so if you have some semper vivans go ahead and divide those babies out or if you have a friend
that has some i guarantee that they would be more than happy to share some chicks with you because
at some point you've just got to go in there and thin out your
your chicks and your hens
this is an old timey plant i remember my grandmother had these so
so much fun last one we're going to sit here and snip off
there we go so i have my little table full i will let them cure for three to four days
and then i will just do exactly what i did today and just take them over there
fill in the little gaps and voila so this is a fun little project and there's always something
new in the garden to do um even here in august you can still be in your garden so as always thanks
so much for joining the creekside y'all have a great day we'll see you next video bye friends
you